"Prime members can enjoy a collection of great HBO shows on an unlimited basis, at no additional cost to their Prime membership," said Brad Beale, director of content acquisition for Amazon.The first batch of shows will be available on Prime Instant Video starting on May 21.

And here I was just the other day thinking about how nice it would be to revisit The Wire.

naughtyrev:I never watched The Sopranos, but if you don't think The Wire is a classic, subby, I'd be very curious to know what you think is.

If I'm reading subby correctly, I think his problem isn't so much with the quality of the shows but the aging. "Classic" usually refers to something good that is also older. Though he might be surprised to learn that those shows both ended more than 5 years ago.

RoyBatty:So 3 year old or older HBO is good, but the streaming service is still essentially worthless for my needs until Amazon comes out with an Android client. Yeah, we know, you want to push Kindles.

Yeah that was kind of annoying. My kindle was stolen a few weeks ago, and I went to install an android client on my phone and "new tablet" (old Evo 4g) only to find that they were "incompatible." I understand I can watch it on my laptop, but Amazon prime video to my chromecast would be pretty sweet to have, especially on work trips.

So when is Canada going to get Instant Video as part of prime. I have been a prime member for just under a year and it is pretty handy for the shipping. If I could get shows as part of it, it would be even better. Hell even if I could just get those shows that Amazon produces I would be happy.

Xythero:I've never seen the Sopranos, but it's usually mentioned as one of the shows kicking off the "Golden Age of Television." I suppose that would make it a classic, or at least historically important.

Yeah, basically television was (relatively speaking) completely awful before the Sopranos. What were the best shows on TV in the decade before the Sopranos? Law & Order? E.R.? Different flavors of Star Trek or various David E. Kelly shows? Come on. All of them were vastly inferior to the Sopranos, and the Sopranos itself has since been surpassed by other shows. The Sopranos showed people that TV writing could be as good as good movie writing. Nothing else at the time was even in its ballpark.

I just started watching the Sopranos... and it's pretty bad. James Gandolfini and the mob business is fine, but when his wife or kids start drama it's just terrible. And so far it's a pretty even split between potentially good mob stuff and terrible family drama.